Bill Callahan (as Smog) and Say Valley Maker. I think this video’s great too
Sometimes when I’m at work I look around me and I listen to the tapping of the keyboards and I look at all the people and I get fixated on the fact that we are all just sacks of bones covered in flesh and then all I can see are skeletons and I have to look out the window
I’m still working as a telephone bitch.
I’ve been mostly reading this:
which I read when I was a teenager. I think I mostly blanked out the actual events after the first time I read it but not the general atmosphere of the book, like how Esther feels when she takes a bath. It describes depression really well and even though its obviously uncomfortable at times I love it.
I don’t recommend reading it in an environment where you have to drag yourself out of its intensity to make your voice all light on the phone with strangers. Though the other day I took an order from a women who wanted a book of poetry. She told me she only wanted to read cheerful poetry and could I please check that the poets in there were only the cheerful ones. I listed them and she said “thank god there is no Emily Dickenson, and I especially can’t stand Plath” Loads of people would agree with her but not me.
On days when I’ve forgotten that book I read this one, which is just left in my locker becasue I don’t love it.
She uses really annoying syntax. And says pointless things like ”sometimes they thought their mother was the most beautiful woman in the world, and sometimes they did not” I know that’s an alright sort of thing to say, because that’s true in life, (sometimes, and sometimes it is not). But repeatedly using this way to express things makes me feel like the last part of the sentence deletes the first part and I’m reading a series of nothings.
I’ve heard the book’s supposed to be amazing, but I can’t hack it. I don’t like it when an author spends too long describing what someone looks like, I competely glaze over, it detracts from the story and makes me suspect they’re buying time because they don’t know what to say. Sorry Arundhati, if I don’t remember to leave you on a bus I’ll probably leave you in my locker for next years temp.
The boss whose coffee I stole is still off with me, but I forced her into polite conversation in the kitchen the other day.
The kitchen is generally really tidy and devoid of character, because people only ever use it to make tea and coffee. There is never anything on the work surfaces except 3 plain plastic jars; one contains pyramid teabags, one coffee and one sugar. There are three cupboards full of mugs and plastic glasses, and 4 cupboards with absolutely nothing in them apart from some bin bags. However, on this day I caught my boss worrying a washing-up bowl that was on the work surface instead of in the sink.
It was full to the brim with luke-warm water and cutlery – pretty heavy as you might well imagine. She didn’t want it there, but didn’t seem to know how to put it in the sink. As I made the small talk I watched her slowly tip the bowl over the edge of the sink to pour out some of the water. I could see its plastic sides start to warp slightly, the weight being too much for her fingernails to take. She looked at the whole process as if she was watching it on tv, her hand totally not connected to her brain. She carried on tipping and the force of the water gathered speed and made the bowl slip, its angle changed pouring most of it over her shoes and tights.
She grabbed handfuls of blue paper from the dispenser and crouched down and wiped the floor clean muttering under her breath.. While she was doing this I said a few “oh dear”s and lifted the half-full washing-up bowl into the sink.
Five minutes later she put an angry message on the internal staff forum asking that please could staff make more effort to clean up after themselves as the kitchen becomes extremely messy very quickly. Yeah, and my tights are still wet, is what she forgot to say.
God I can’t do this forever.
Been listening to this:
and this:
and this:
This November marks my first attempt at nanowrimo. It’s surprisingly terrifying.
One of the main problems is that I find it really difficult to write on the computer straight off. Inspiration only seems to strike when I use a pen and paper, either when I’m in the bath with a soggy note pad or in between calls at work where I have to jot things down on scraps. I shouldn’t be surprised because that’s always where my ideas start, but as romantic an old fashioned as it sounds its really annoying. Still, at least there are little bursts of something here and there.
I don’t expect to finish but I expect it to make me write.
Whilst I’m not on the phone to the bastard-book-buying public and I’m not daydreaming about plots I mostly read this:
which is another one I found on my mums bookshelf…or actually in a box of books she was taking to the charity shop (I found three in there – we have different tastes in what should be charity shopped)
My favourite story has been The Rain Horse by Ted Hughes. I’ve never read any of his writing before and now I can’t wait to read more. (Despite his catastophic affect on women… I promise I’ll read double the Plath afterwards. )
The other nano problem is that I’m writing a blog rather than the actual novel.
Posted in books, Frustration, Good Things
I watched this at uni when I was researching my dissertation, I just found it on youtube… whole films on there now! I tell thee…
I think it was one of the first films to tackle the issue of homelessness, it was broadcast in 1966 and directed by Ken Loach. I always remember the scene where Cathy’s told not to drink from the cracked mug, I avoid them now.
Not sure this video will work so go here if you fancy it
I mentioned to my mum earlier how I thought it was entirely possible for a woman to kill someone whilst suffering from PMS. She was very shocked. She’d just walked in on me standing in front of the ringing telephone, shouting obscenities at it.
About 10 minutes before that she’d been mowing the lawn and looked in at me when doing the bit under my bedroom window, my mascara streaked face shouted at her to go away.
Do you think you need to get some help? She looked really worried and started doing that thing where she holds her hands up by her chest like a squirrel.
I just need to be left alone, for at least one day a month… Probably so do the women who kill people on their periods.
This didn’t calm her nerves I don’t think.
I mean this is quite funny:
There’s no doubt that periods affect mood, of course your body is heaving itself all over the place with different levels of hormones, helping to bring about emotional eruptions that make you wanna carve stuff on tables, but what I’m trying to say is that these emotional eruptions wouldn’t be so extreme or difficult to deal with if women felt okay to just express stuff all the time, so these feelings don’t get pent up and repressed. Continue reading
Posted in Menstruation
In Wales, I’ve noticed that a lot of people talk to their children like they talk to their dogs
I cant get enough of this song (the Au Pairs were from Birmingham in the late 70s.) Playing With A Different Sex
It’s the kind of song that should be boring but I can never stop moving when I hear it, it just makes me bounce and bounce
Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov
because I’ll never have the joy of reading it for the first time ever again. However, I know that reading it again will bring me a different kind of joy.
Posted in books
I love this. Watch them all here http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/great_egg_race/
in fact here is the whole tune
it sounds like the smell of old books, moustaches and yellowing plastic
This morning at around 7.57am disaster struck at work, when I realised I’d run out of tea bags. After a quick desperate search for some spare ones I grabbed the only caffeine related drink I could find and helped myself to a couple of spoonfulls of shit granulated coffee.
Whilst doing this the Big Lady Boss walked into the kitchen, she’s wondering where her coffee is in a “posh” I’m-From-The Wirrel-and-Not-Liverpool accent. I turn around with the tea-spoon in my hand like a guilty child and then quickly look back to the counter. She sounds really pissed off. My body blocks the jar from her view, but I can’t hide it for much longer, neither can I hide the spilt coffee mess I’ve made that’s melting onto the wet surface.
I jam the lid half on and step away from the offending item to find milk. She spots the mess I’ve made around her coffee and instead of making light of it she raises her eye brows and says “OH right! I see! *swipe* God you can’t put anything down in here can you.”
I retreat to my desk and then watch as she waltzes back to her office in the corner of the call centre, clutching the jumbo-sized jar of Nescafé in her hands.
This is what my life has become.
An hour later a message pops up on the internal staff message board that reads “Free Tea and Coffee will now be supplied by the canteen for all staff as of Monday 18th October”
That’s gotta be cos I stole the bosses stuff right?
Posted in Life
